


Lover's Bane

by WolffyLuna



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bad Ideas, Explicit Consent, First Time, Hand Jobs, Kissing, Lust Potion/Spell, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Third Person, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 10:26:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17938040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Alim Surana has a problem. He would like to have sex-- but every time he tries, he freaks himself out.Obviously, the most sensible solution to this is to dose himself with a lust potion.





	Lover's Bane

Alim Surana had a problem.

Smoke from the camp’s fire threatened to blow into his eyes. The fire made a ring of light around them, but made the night outside seem that much darker.

This was not his problem (or at least, not his main one. He still hadn’t got used to how dark and quiet the outdoors could get.)

Zevran leaned across the log they sat on, and rested on Alim’s shoulders. “You’re thinking very loudly.”

Alim looked up from the fire. _(“Why is the beef cooking, but we’re not, even though we’re next to it?”_ he thought.) He smiled. “I wasn’t aware my mouth was moving.”

“Ah, you see we Crows have skills in telling how hard someone is thinking,” he said, lying. (But, like, fun lying. Alim quite liked the fun lying.) He ruffled Alim’s hair, making half of it fall in his face. “And you _are_ thinking too hard.”

Leliana made a tactical retreat to Morrigan’s fire, which was wise of her. Alistair looked to exhausted to move, and looked at his stew like he was evaluating its quality as a potential pillow. Wynne probably hoped her presence, combined with Oghren’s, would stop what was about to inevitably happen. Sten just didn’t have the cultural background to work out what was about to happen.

“It’s not like you can stop me.”

Zev’s smile turned lascivious.  “Oh, we’ll see about that.”

Zevran was not Alim’s problem. (Well, unless you were Wynne, in which case Zevran was going to cause the Blight to destroy Fereldan and spread all over Thedas by being so goshdarn distracting.)

Zevran stood up from the log, and offered his hand.

Alim grabbed it, and nearly pulled Zevran over while levering himself up. He brushed the dirt and splinters off the back of his robe.

Zevran was definitely _related_ to his problem.

Zevran Aranai was a handsome elf, of many skillsets, including one that he would, presumably, like to share with Alim. And _that_ was where Alim’s problem started.

They walked to Alim’s tent, playfully half dragging each other.

Alim stripped off his robe, and dropped it to the floor, leaving only his trousers.

Zevran pulled him by his waist down onto his lap.

Alim gripped onto his shoulders—definitely for balance and leverage and _certainly_ not to cop a feel of those muscles—and kissed him on the lips.

Zevran smiled into the kiss, and snaked an arm around Alim’s backside—also _definitely_ for support and certainly not for groping. His hand kneaded and gripped his flesh, somewhere between a massage and just squishing it around because it was fun.

Their kisses danced around each other’s faces, skittering over jaws and ears and occasionally dipping onto necks, before coming back to lips. Lips were good. Lips were soft and sensitive and he could feel the Zev feeling him, feel the way their skin slid against each other’s or caught on the little bits of dead skin he couldn’t stop picking at.

And kissing didn’t involve talking, which was another point in its favour. Not that Alim disliked talking—Maker knew he’d been told that he loved the sound of his own voice enough. But kissing didn’t involve saying sentences that would show that he didn’t know what he was doing.

There were other ways they were feeling each other. They weren’t grinding per se, but with the way Alim perched on his lap, there was a certain amount of groin-to-groin contact, which he wasn’t opposed to.

Alim shifted forward, not just for more contact, but so he could take one hand of Zev’s shoulder without falling backwards and hitting his head against a tentpole (the leverage thing wasn’t entirely dishonest). With his free hand, he stroked Zevran’s hair, carding through it to stroke along his scalp. It was a little greasy, but eh—such was the tent life.

Zevran breathed out a happy sigh. He pulled back from the kiss, and ran his finger inside the waistband of Alim’s trousers. “Would you like me to--?” _–take these off? Go further?_

Alim shivered at the trail of ghost fingers along his hip, his nerves still sparking despite Zevran’s hands moving along. Zevran would want to—why else would he have asked?—and Alim liked pleasing him, liked making him happy. He treasured each genuine smile, once he worked out how to pick the true ones out from the generalised smarm.

But Zevran liked _good_ sex, and that certainly wasn’t in Alim’s playbook. His knowledge started and ended with ‘kissing=nice’ and ‘penises: they exist!’ (and ‘vaginas: they _probably_ exist?’). Mages either didn’t have sex, or they worked out how to have it without the Templars noticing and _then never told anybody how or any other useful information_.  (Jowan’s character flaws: many. The one Alim focused on at this instant: that one.)

And, then there was the other issue, the whole magical one. Sex presumably involved some loss of control, and while he hadn’t heard of anyone, like, accidentally starting fires or anything, he wouldn’t know about any accidental sex arson, _would he?_ —

—and he was overthinking this, this was a simple question of ‘pants on or off’ but he couldn’t stop overthinking it, of all the ways he could either have sex badly or somehow mortally offend Zevran (could you be so bad at sex as to mortally offend someone? FUCK IF HE KNEW), or somehow taking out the whole camp in a conflagration of fire and lightning, or somehow getting _possessed_ mid-sex—

( _That_ was Alim’s problem.)

The nice thing about doing this in a tent at night was that he didn’t have to worry about making a sensible facial expression, though he could feel his face twisting into a dorky, apologetic half-smile. “Maybe not?” He leaned in to kiss Zev again, so that this whole thing didn’t stop cold, because he didn’t want it to. He liked it, Zev liked, he liked making Zevran happy, it was a win-win all round. And it made a good distraction from the fear of Sex So Bad it Ruined Your Best Relationship And Killed You.

Zevran leaned back into, kissing at the corner of his mouth. His fingers slid out of Alim’s waistband, hands slid up onto his ribs.

Ghost fingers danced along the whole trail.

 

***

They danced that rondo many times. Alim and Zev would… fool around, Zev would ask, Alim would decline.

Not because he didn’t want to do it—well, actually, some part of him didn’t want to do it. Not because _all_ of him didn’t want to do it. He had been informed that sex was enjoyable, and he trusted Zevran’s corroboration of that fact. Zevran was being a good sport about this malarkey, there was no denying that. He took it in stride, didn’t go all mopey, there was no evidence that he was disappointed—except, like logic, or the fact he kept asking.

And Alim wanted to as well! Just—there were so many ways it could go wrong.

And so many ways for him to back out.

They were in Denerim now, and that was just the piss icing on the shit cake. Denerim was terrible to its core. He hated everything about the city: it’s architecture, it’s people, the politics (he hadn’t even successfully joined a fraternity, and they wanted him to pick the RULER?), the fact Loghain lived there, the fact he couldn’t go into the Alienage (he was allowed to be nostalgic for a place he’d never been, just let him _iiin_ \--) and the weird ass problems that kept occurring (who kidnapped WHO?).

Plus, he hated that he had easy access to a bed and four walls, and had no ability to do anything _with them_. Which just seemed like rubbing salt in the wound.

Sure, getting worked up by the fact that he couldn’t get laid because of HIMSELF was small potatoes compared to civil war and the Blight, but it felt easier to deal with. (It _should_ have been easier. He’s made more progress towards ending the civil war than getting into Zevran’s pants and getting his own off, which shouldn’t be possible.) (Zevran should also be climbing the walls so much that he ended up on the ceiling, but he hadn’t shown up in the rafters—yet. It was still early days.)

He paced around his room.

If he could just—give himself enough incentive to not back out at the last minute, something to push him forward, he could do it.

He leaned onto the wall, pillowing his forehead against his forearm.

Wait.

There _was_ such a thing, such a goad, such an incentive.

He was no expert on these matters, his education at the Circle was most edifying in some regards but lacking in this one—but not _completely_ lacking.

Lover’s Bane was a case study of why you shouldn’t just replace potion ingredients willy-nilly. It was based off one painkilling potion, but with some ingredients swapped with another. The ingredients that were exchanged played the same role in each potion, and in theory they should work the same—

The younger apprentices got told that Lover’s Bane did not work as a painkilling potion, and teachers hurriedly changed the subject when asked _why_ it was called Lover’s Bane. The older apprentices got told what it actually did, and firm instructions not to make it. (Despite being given instructions for how? Maybe they assumed no one would work out how to substitute ingredients, which was a frankly bizarre assumption. Half the apprentices’ brains could have been replaced rocks with little change to their overall intellectual ability, but the half--)

Lover’s Bane was an aphrodisiac. A rather powerful one. A _compelling_ one. Not that it would harm you if you didn’t act on your desires, but when you were on Lover’s Bane, why wouldn’t you? You were aroused and disinhibited, so why wouldn’t you get into the nearest willing party’s pants?

He was no longer an apprentice, nor in the Circle, and he was a Grey Warden, and thus could do any damn fool thing he wanted to. Like dose himself with Lover’s Bane.

If it took a little Antivan courage to ~~get past the fear~~   ~~ignore the risk of blowing himself up~~   ~~ignore the risk of blowing whatever he and Zev had up~~ get past the hump, well, he’d do it.

And he could do it with Lover’s Bane.

 

***

 

The room echoed with ring of marble-on-marble and the quiet crack of the seeds as he ground up star-anise in a mortar and pestle. Why did potion making involve so much grinding? Ugh. Still, he ground with more enthusiasm than usual. Knowing what he was making, what it would do, what it would allow him to do—it was exciting. And a little frightening. But mostly exciting.

The half-finished potion bubbled without heat in its flask on the retort. It smelled of parsley and dirty seawater—so far. Who knows what it would end up being.

Wynne walked in with an industrial quantity of elf root.

He grunted a greeting at her. He didn’t want to her hovering over his shoulder, but—he was an adult. She was an adult. She could deal with working out with what he was making, and he could deal with however scandalised she was.

“It’s good to have some help stocking up,” she said, as she set up on the table next to him.

“Mhhm.” He poured the ground up anise through a paper funnel into the flask. And just, ignored the fact that unlike Wynne, he wasn’t making enough healing potions to supply a battalion.

Wynne glanced over at his ingredients, and—paused. And considered whether she was going to ignore it to.

She turned back to stripping elf root. “I do hope you’re being careful, young man.”

Well, if she wasn’t going to make eye contact, he wasn’t either. “When have you known me to be careless?” He said in a flat, serious tone. A confusingly serious tone.  A deliberately serious tone.

Wynne paused, and frowned. Probably trying to weigh up what she saw at the Circle (a quiet, careful, conchy kid) with what she’d seen recently (someone who considered liberal application of fire to be the solution to most problems, including darkspawn, were an even more liberal application was recommended.) She sighed, shook her head, and went back to her work.

And Alim went back to his.

 

***

 

Alim sat on the edge of his bed, swirling the liquid in the vial.

He could do this. He just had to drink it. It was only a trial run—he didn’t want to do this in front of Zevran, and fuck up the dose, or worse, not have it work at all.

The liquid was opaque. Full of sediment. _Real_ appetising, that.

He uncorked it, and poured it down his throat. It tasted somewhere between ‘licorice’ and ‘salted meat,’ and had the consistency of soapy water. He was glad he drank it quickly-- if he tried to drink it slowly, he couldn’t have finished it.

He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The aftertaste was even more meaty. Which was an improvement of being more licorice-y, he guessed.

Nothing happened. Well, nothing other than a dry mouth and a rebellion of his taste buds.

He stood up and walked over to his desk. Maybe it just took a while to kick in. Yes, that was it. He’d do something productive, and wait for it to hit him (Because it would work. There was no reason it wouldn’t work. ~~And no reason to hope it didn’t~~.)

He drew up a table, with neat columns and headers and scrupulously neat handwriting, of the respective pros and cons of the different potential rulers of Fereldan.

It took 5 minutes for the Lover’s Bane to kick in. Either that, or ‘Loghain: as crazy as he seems?’ (carefully catergorised in the ‘???’ column) was a _deeply sexy_ thought, and Alim… doubted that.

The arousal hit him like a spooking horse to the face. It was quick and strong and— _sharp_? Word and metaphor didn’t work anymore, thinking didn’t quite work anymore, all he had was building heat and tension and desire to get his clothes off and need to have _something_ happen to his cock.

He shucked his robes, threw them off, removed them faster than he would have if they were on fire, and fell backwards onto the bed.

His chest flushed bright red, and his cock demanded his attention. Not just physically (even if it was prominent and aching and dripping), it took over his brain with need. The potion filled his brain with its desire, a desire to touch and stroke and wallow in the sensation/

He reached a hand out to touch, and jerked back as if he’d been electrocuted. He was sensitive—not more sensitive than he’d ever been, but “I’ve already come so what is the point in continuing?” levels of sensitive.

Ignoring it was an option. Well, it was on option, but not a fun one. Even under the pain there was a sharp shock of pleasure.

He stroked… gently, gentle enough that fun outweighed the ‘ow.’

The Lover’s Bane didn’t just make him physically more sensitive—which it did, with aplomb, and made him feel subtleties of his fingers that he’d never felt before—but mentally too. The difference in feel between his fingers and palms, the feel of different parts of his cock under them, meant something, became filled with an intangible significance.

The tension and heat built, kept building, more than he could fully handle. He didn’t moan—but his breathing involved more of his voice box than it should, hitched breaths that became half squeaks.

What would Zevran think if he saw him like this? …good things, hopefully? ‘Desperate’ and ‘out of control’ and ‘wanting’ seemed like they would be attractive traits? Especially combined with ‘sensitive’ and ‘squirmy’ and ‘willing to endlessly praise your fingers’.

And if Zevran was here, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself-- and he wanted that. Yes. He wanted that. That was what he wanted. He wanted to please Zevran and this would please him so that’s what he wanted. (He ignored the stab of fear there. It  wasn’t relevant.)

His orgasm hit him less like a spooking horse and more like having a small dog thrown at him. He spilled over his hands, and the heat and tension—abated. Somewhat. They didn’t go away. He wasn’t so aroused he was hard again, it was separate from that, somehow more… intellectual?

(Not that anything about Lover’s Bane was that intellectual). But if someone shoved a random cock at him, he’d be interested in it? He’d want to touch it and suck it and work out all the fun things you could with a cock someone randomly shoved at you--

\--strong stuff, then.

(That’s what he wanted. That was the goal, that was the plan— _that was what he wanted_.)

( ~~He didn’t succeed at convincing himself~~.)

 

***

Zevran lounged on his own bed.

Alim tried to lounge, be languid, but he ended up nervously perched on the edge, his foot going numb under his butt. “Would you be interested in something… unusual?”

Zevran arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Alim leaned over, aiming for ‘smooth and seductive’ and aware he was probably failing. “There’s a potion I know how to make. A lust potion. Makes one, uh, rather aroused.”

“On me or on you? I wouldn’t say no to being driven wild with frustration.”

“On myself.”

Zevran cocked his head, evaluating.

Alim held his breath. His stomach dropped out of his body and into the Fade. If Zevran said no, if he thought it was a bad idea—what was Alim supposed to do _then_?

“I’m game.”

Alim sighed (hoping it was invisible, unnoticeable, hoping against hope that Zevran would notices that release of tension) and pulled a vial from his pocket.

The other eyebrow went up. “I didn’t expect you to be prepared.”

Alim smiled, a jokey smile. “Well, I thought about teasing you and making you wait—“ He pulled the stopper out with his teeth (using your mouth to do things you didn’t usually use your mouth for was sexy, right? He was pretty sure it was sexy.) “—but that just felt mean.”

“Ah, if only I had said something about frustration sooner.”

Alim’s smile twitched upwards, and he downed the potion. …yep, still tasted terrible, definitely not a taste he could acquire. “It takes about five minutes to kick in.”

Zevran sat up and smirked. “We’ll just have to fill in the time, won’t we.” He kissed Alim’s mouth, explored the inside with his tongue—and pulled back. Made a face. “Was there salted meat in that?”

“There shouldn’t be.” Alim put the vial on the floor, next to the bed. “One day, the circle will manage to make something that doesn’t taste like random garbage in a bottle.”

“Ah, random garbage in a bottle, so appealing in alcohol, so unappealing in potions.” Zevran leaned forward to kiss him—kiss his jaw, specifically. Not that Alim could really blame him.

Alim ran his fingers through Zev’s hair—Denerim actually had _baths,_ and his hair was soft and fluffy and not at all greasy and Alim heartily approved.

Zevran moved down, leaving feather-light kisses along his collar bone.

Alim pulled back enough to strip his over-robe off, leaving behind the trousers he had underneath. Goosebumps rose along his arm. Whether it was from the cold (Denerim: always cold! Always made colder with a chilly sea breeze!)  or nerves—well, it didn’t matter. Wouldn’t matter. All he had to was take his clothes off one at a time, and let the Lover’s Bane do the rest. That should work. Would work.

He leaned forward to take Zevran’s shirt. Even in casual clothes, he always had more buckles than strictly necessary.

Zev distracted him and made him fumble the buckles by licking his ear.

Alim would like to claim that the ear-licking had as much effect on him as, sasy, elbow licking, but well, a) even if most elves ears were not _that_ sensitive, someone had to be the exception and that exception had to be him, apparently, and b) have you ever tried to undo buckles while someone was licking your elbows? “Do you want this shirt off or not?” Alim said, as yet another buckle defeated him.

Zevran laughed softly in his ear. “We have all night, no? And it is fun to watch you flustered.”

“But there’s a tickimg clock, and presumably you want your shirt off before I’m _too_ flustered?”

“True, true.” He unbuckled the bucles in one smooth motion, due to being familiar with his own shirt.

Alim pushed down his nerves—these were normal first-time jitters, definitely, he just had to wait them out, he had solved the problem, the Lover’s Bane _would solve the problem_ —and took a moment to admire Zevran. He was very admirable.  He may not have had ‘throw a tree’ levels of muscle, but he had solid ‘drag a dead body around’ levels of muscle, with hard shoulder and arm muscles under thin layer of fat, and that was a _very good_ level of muscle.

Zevran seemed to appreciate Alim’s level of muscle from the way he ran his hands over Alim back—which he didn’t _get_ but okay?

They kissed—along each other’s necks, down towards chests.

Zevran ran his hand down Alim’s ribs, hooked a finger around the waistband of his pants.

“--Sure,” he said, and sat up enough that Zevran could pull them off.

…he was going to count that as a success. Pants were off, and he didn’t die of shame! SUCCESS! He grinned, and restrained himself from punching the air.

Zevran grinned back, and seemed to be restraining himself equally hard.

Alim pulled off Zevran’s pants (now with 100% less buckle than his shirt).

There, they were both equally naked. Success. And both half hard, which wasn’t really surprising considering the circumstances.

Alim kissed along the edge of Zevran’s jaw, and Zev hummed happily—and it hit. Hot and hard and sharp and—

“I think it’s kicked in,” Alim said, into the corner of Zevran’s jaw.

“Good.”

It was a lot—it was going to be a good-a-lot. It was going to be fine. Yes. That was what was going to happen. Lover’s Bane felt like a lot, and that was the intention, and that was what was going to get him over the hump, and let him actually have sex.

They kept kissing. Zevran stroked down his side again, with an obvious trajectory.

And—nope, nope. Couldn’t do it. His stomach tightened, and the goosebumps raised higher. “Uh, maybe later?”

“Of course.”

Oh _come on,_ he’d taken it for _one reason_ , why couldn’t he do it? His cock was hard and demanded attention, made it hard to think and analyse and introspect, and he couldn’t do anything about it—

— _Oh_.

What did he fear? Losing control, among other things.

_What did Lover’s Bane do?_

Bit late now, however. And—he could push through it. Yes. He’d let the Lover’s Bane give him the incentive, and work through it, and make Zevran happy, and he could do it and push through it—

He kissed him harder, and half climbed into his lap.

Zevran put his arm around his waist to hold him up.

Kissing was still nice. Still distracting, still pleasurable and kept some of the edge off the Lover’s Bane… wait. That wasn’t the kissing. That was his hips. Moving without his permission, grinding against Zev. And it felt good, like sparks arcing across him—but he didn’t give any part of himself permission to do that! _Thanks hips_.

He shuffled back a bit. “Sorry about that—“

Zevran relaxed his arm, and let him shuffle. “—no, it’s fine, it’s okay.”

Alim smiled. Ideally it was a jokey, disarming smile, but considering he wasn’t entirely sure what his hips were doing, who knows what his expression looked like. “I should probably be saying the same things with my body as my mouth.”

Zevran still had his traditional, actually disarming grin, but there was a hint of concern. “That is generally good.”

More kissing. That was good. Kissing was good (and soft and warm and intimate and very _doable_ ). (The hollow of Zevran’s throat was also very good, and very responsive to kissing.)

More grinding. …not good. What the fuck, hips? _You should be under_ my _control!_ “Fuck, sorry, not happening again.”

Zevran pulled back. “Are you alright?”

Alim put the grin back on. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Zevran paused, then tapped under his own eye. “Your pupils are very blown, among other things.”

He shrugged. “Well, I haven’t exactly looked at myself in the mirror.”

Zevran stayed back. “Back in Antiva, noble ladies would put drops of the juice from a certain plant in their eyes to make their pupils blow like that. They thought it made them prettier. I do hope that plant isn’t in your potion.”

Work stories. Of course. Zevran’s favoured tool to distract and disarm, and while Alim usually liked them—this was not the time. He didn’t want to be disarmed, he wanted to _deal_ with this (he wanted to give into the Lover’s Bane, he wanted to not do that--)  “Why not?”

“It’s shockingly poisonous.”

“If you want to tell me how you poisoned some duchess with her own make up: another time. Please.”

More kissing, in an attempt to distract each other. More grinding, bring them back to what was actually happening.

Zevran pulled back. “Hold on. Stop.”

Alim wanted to say something, ramble out something like ‘no it’s fine I’m okay don’t worry’ but… no. Not doing that. And no looking like a kicked puppy, either. (The Lover’s Bane made that one hard. Fuck you, Lover’s Bane. Fuck you in your star anise arse. He’d like to just have _some_ control of his body right now. Please.)

“You keep saying one thing and your body doing another, and you look very impaired—and I can’t tell how much of you is doing the talking, and how much is the potion—and no. I’m not dealing with that.” He shuffled over, out from under Alim, so they sat side-by-side.

That was a good idea, Alim thought. All the comfort of having a warm body next to you, with none of the need for eye contact. A good combination for an awkward discussion. (It would be nice if he could _appreciate it_ , without the potion’s constant call of ‘why aren’t you doing anything? You should do something!’)

“If you just need a minute to—centre yourself, that’s fine. If you want to just continue kissing, because that is nice: also fine. If we need to completely stop: that is also fine. But I am not going to keep going with this push-pull thing.”

“No, I really am fine—“ He couldn’t see Zevran, but he could feel the doubtful look boring into the side of his head. “—just give me a minute.”

…okay, it was pretty hard to sit there and get a grip on himself (no pun intended.) On the one hand, a worried Zevran next to you is pretty distracting, and in a way much harder to ignore than a worried anyone else. (Zevran didn’t do worried. He could be sitting on top of a Hurlock that was also on fire, and he would still look completely unconcerned.) On the other hand:  fuuuuck Lover’s Bane. The arousal only built and built, and his body was torn between leaping on Zevran (NO, not helping your case there, body) or just jerking off right here (no. Like, a smaller ‘no’, but still a _no_.)

Sometimes discretion was the better part of valour. Sometimes the best way to avoid a freak out in front of someone you don’t want to freak out, while you’re high on a potion that you thought would solve your problems but really didn’t, was to run away like a whiny baby. He leaped up off the bed and grabbed his robe. Fuck his pants, he could pick them up later. “Actually, maybe it’s better if I just go now—“He dropped the robe over his head, and fought to get his arms through.

“If you need to stay here, I can go to your rooms—“

“No, no, I got it, I’m fine—“ –and out the door, with all alacrity.

He reached his own room, collapsed against a wall, and started masturbating. It wasn’t even _fun_ or pleasurable or whatever, merely an attempt to shut up his body, shut up the potion, and think.

It half worked, but that was enough.

One of the problems with Lover’s Bane was you could think ludicrously un-sexy thoughts, and still be aroused. Like thinking about how badly you (general you, of course, Alim wasn’t going to wallow in introspection right now) just fucked up.

…yeah, there was no way he was going to avoid the introspection, was he? The Lover’s Bane was distracting, the hand on his cock was distracting, but not enough, his mind won this fight--

He fucked up. Paint it on a banner and lasso it to the archdemon: He Fucked Up.

While he was fairly sure that his relationship with Zevran wasn’t purely physical, he didn’t _know_ that. Maybe Zevran was only interested because he thought Alim could eventually manage sex without self-destructing. (And maybe he could, but oh boy did what just happened not make it look like it.)  Maybe he just broke his first and only romantic relationship, in a spectacular and magical way. Way to go Alim, definitely making it look like the Circle taught you how not fuck everything up with magic!

Even without that fear, he wanted Zevran to be _happy_. And what did he achieve? A not happy Zevran! That was the opposite of what he wanted, he specifically wanted to make a happy one!

…and he wanted to _try_ sex. People said it was fun and pleasurable and intimate and that many people couldn’t be wrong, right? He just wanted to get over himself and do it and he _tried that_ and he _made it worse_. He just wanted to try and not the freak out. Was that too much to ask. _Was it_?!

When he came, he had three thoughts:

_Fuck, I’m still horny._

_Fuck, I’m going to have to clean this up._

_Fuck, I do_ **not** _want to deal with tomorrow morning._

***

 

Tomorrow morning, unfortunately, had to happen.

Alim peeled himself up off the bed-- and immediately fell back down on to it. Pro tip: Don’t take Lover’s Bane twice in one day; you’ll feel like crap.

…Feel like more than crap. Every part of his body felt heavy. His eyes felt greasy. There was something behind his temples that was seriously considering becoming a headache with extra sparkles. And worse than all that was the lethargy. Breathing was taking a significant chunk of energy and concentration. Nothing was going to happen without a significant investment of willpower.

And he was grumpy. He frowned at the colour of ceiling, because what sane architect would make a ceiling _that_ colour? He grumbled lungs and diaphragm, because how dare they make this an effort. Other such irrational and irritable thoughts floated across his mind unbidden. Who knows if it was the fatigue or how much he fucked up last night. …probably both. _Ugh._ (He cursed himself, because _why the fuck did you think that was a good idea_? _You’re worse than the bloody architect—)_

He rolled out of bed, and fell onto the floor. The jolt of pain didn’t make him spring into action. It would have been nice if it did. He’d take throwing himself against the walls if it made it easier to do things. But no. And now he was sore on top of being grumpy and tired and headache-y. Fantastic.

He stood up, step by step, and walked over to his clothes, step by step.

Denerim better not catch on fire today.

Just—he just had to walk to his clothes. Put on clothes. Go to breakfast. Eat breakfast. Find out if eating was a good or a bad idea. And then he could work out how to face the rest of the day. (It seemed like an awful long to do list when he put it like that.)

He dropped a robe over his head, and straightened it out. Put his shoes on. Fought with his shoes, and the laces thereof. There. Step one and two complete.

No one better be chatty at breakfast. He couldn’t face conversation without snapping at someone, and then they’d be concerned, and uggghhh. …Zevran better not be at breakfast. Any difficult conversation that happened near him would make him scream or flee. Slowly. But ‘slowly’ was probably worse.

He staggered over to the door, and through the hallways. Hunger pangs prodded his stomach. He’d feel more alive if he ate. (He hoped.) 

Zevran wasn’t at breakfast. That was good. And neither was the Arl. (Yay, no half asleep and grumpy political discussions.) Alistair was only there physically. On the table in front of him was a intimidatingly large book of treaties. On top of said book was Alistair’s face. (And oh Maker, did Alim feel that. Sympathies, Alistair, sympathies.) Morrigan sat next to him, and rolled her eyes. (She probably sat there for the explicit purpose of rolling her eyes at him until he woke up.)

Alim made as much of a beeline for the porridge as he could without expending too much effort. Porridge: not a food that requires chewing. A point in favour of porridge. He ladeled it into a bowl, only spilling a little over the sides and onto his hands, and turned around.

Wynne watched him. Looking worried. Looking _concerned_.

He pictured himself walking over there and dumping the porridge over her head, because what right did a sanctimonious abomination have to _judge_ his life choices—Which was evidence that he shouldn’t be around people. Too grumpy. She was probably concerned because he looked like he’d lost a fight with a large venomous spider. And if she was judging—well, that was fair enough. He’d done some judgeable things recently. Though she could’ve kept it _off her face_ —yeah, definitely time to be not around people. Time to go into a den, lick his emotional and chemical wounds, and become fit for company again.

More of them watched as he left, and he would like a pat on the head for not making _any_ rude gestures at them. He was being very polite! He’d like the universe to reward him for that, please!

He was halfway down a corridor, when someone snuck up behind him. He spun around, nearly spilling his porridge—“Oh. Zevran. Hello.”

Some people had to think about walking quietly. Case in point: himself. Some people had to think about walking _loudly_. Case in point: Zevran.

Zevran looked—concerned. Sheepish. Apologetic. Worried. One of those expressions. Alim couldn’t quite detangle it. “Apologies for sneaking up, I merely wanted to speak without an audience.” He paused, looking at Alim’s face. “You look like you fell through a window.”

“And you would know, right? …that bad, huh?”

“I am afraid so. It takes a great deal to marr your beauty _—“_ He tucked a lock of hair (that had somehow managed to get matted overnight? What the fuck, hair?) behind Alim’s ear. “--but even so--”

“Well, I didn’t fall out of a literal window. It just feels like it.”

Zevran rubbed the back of his own neck. “The reason I wanted privacy—I wish to apologise for last night. I did not deal with that with as much grace as I should have.”

Alim barked a laugh, harsh and loud and surprising even him. “You thought _you_ were graceless?” If this conversation was going to happen, it may as well happen now, while it was still fresh. And it was strangely energising too. (Almost as if part of the reason he felt like warmed up crap was emotional. Who would have thought?) “Look, hindsight’s stronger than foresight, yadda yadda yadda—but what I did was a bad idea. Predictably bad. Shouldn’t have dragged you into that.”

“As dragging people into stupid things while you were impaired, I definitely have you beat.”

Alim raised an eyebrow. “I bet you have stories.”

“Good ones, too!” More nervous neck rubbing, and glances towards the skirting boards “But still—“

“Pax?”

“Pax.”

Alim leaned against a wall. The conversation: energising, but not that energising, and standing still took stupid amounts of energy. “Could I ask a favour?”

“Certainly. Unless you want to clear out contenders for the Ferelden throne. I will insist you pay for that.”

Alim smiled weakly. “Let the others know that I’m going to sleep, and that unless there is an archdemon right on top of us, _right now_ , I’m not waking up.”

“I will threaten them appropriately.”

“Thanks.”

Zevran kissed the top of his forehead—it was chaste. Comforting.

It took an effort to not slide to the floor in a puddle of ‘Thank the Maker, I didn’t completely screw it up.’

 

***

Look, sometimes the best way to distract yourself from your problems is to try and solve different ones. Sometimes the best way to deal with post rescue jitters was also to try and solve unrelated problems. (Zevran and Leliana managed to break into Fort Drakon in apparently the _stupidest_ way, and he wouldn’t have believed Zev’s story if Leliana hadn’t corroborated it, but either way he appreciated not rotting in one of Loghain’s cells.)

So, problem solving. Like solving the problem he and Zevran had. Well, not between them. The problem they had of both wanting to do something and not being able to because Alim kept chickening out.

 _What_ was he afraid of? Loss of control. And yes, there was some giving up of control inherently involved in the process—but so was anything that involved intense emotional states, or trusting other people, or involving other people at all.

Fighting against the Blight involved a whole lot less control—and he wasn’t as scared of it. Well, wasn’t scared of it in the same way. He could be brave for the Blight, he could be scared and do it anyway—

Huh.

And even so, with sex he wasn’t giving up _that_ much control, in the scheme of things. Like, you couldn’t say ‘Sorry Mr Hurlock, but I don’t feel like getting my head bitten off right now.’ He trusted to Zevran to back off when he asked-- Zevran had _actually done that,_ the proof was in the pudding. And he could control himself. Even on Lover’s Bane, he could leave the room. It had taken a push, and it wasn’t easy, but he fundamentally _could_.  

Anything other fears? Vulnerability. Intimacy. Which were the goals of this exercise. _Sorry, self, you’ve just got to deal with that._ Can’t have the advantages of something and avoid the disadvantages, especially when they were one and the same.

And he trusted Zevran. Trusted him not use anything he found against Alim. Trusted him to end up equally vulnerable, so at least there was a mutual danger. (Trusted him to get a concept like ‘mutual danger’ and why Alim would care about that.)

(And also, on a more minor not: Zevran had seen _a lot_ of people naked. Alim was unlikely to be the weirdest looking one. That was just probability.)

Maybe—maybe what he needed to do was jump into the cold water, or at least step into it, rather than pace around the edges working out how to make it warm. (Or stick his head in and nearly drown himself ‘to get himself used to the temperature’, if he were to drag Lover’s Bane into the metaphor.)

He just had to—agree to it, knowing that if he wanted to flee he could, but that he didn’t want to.

That seemed doable.

 

***

 

From what he’d heard, sex seemed to be an inherently silly endeavour. And as such, Alim intended to lean into the silliness. It was much harder to be embarrassed when you did something embarrassing with _fervour_ and the knowledge that ‘yes, I know I look stupid, and _that’s what I’m trying to do._ ’

So of course, he had to set the scene. First step: Tell Zev to meet him in his quarters in twenty minutes. Second step: Steal a flower from a vase on the way to his quarters. Third step: Make a truly stupid mise en scène.

He stripped off. No need to do the stupid ‘can I take off your pants’ malarkey if he wasn’t wearing pants in the first place. He tucked the clothes under the bed; he didn’t want them in the way, or accidentally trampleable, or just sitting there.

Step 3b: Lay out on the bed in your best his best ‘erotic etching’ pose. Alim wasn’t certain that this actually looked sexy. It looked silly even on the drawings slipped into the dust jackets and passed around by apprentices, and those were drawings, and not flesh and blood elves who couldn’t properly see themselves. But if he looked stupid: well, he was trying to look stupid. He’d count that as a success.

He grabbed a pillow as well, and placed it over his crotch. At least this way, if Wynne or Oghren wandered in, he’d preserve some modesty. Not a _lot_ of modesty, but some.

And the piece de resistance of ‘trying to ride the line of stupid and sexy,’ he stuck a flower between his teeth. It wasn’t a rose, but such is life.

…Step 4: Realise that twenty minutes is a bloody long time, and way more than you needed. Woops.

Step 5: Just—lounge. Lounge and wait.

Zevran opened the door, the hinge squeaking.

“Hello,” Alim said in his best husky  voice, around a mouthful of flower.

Zevran cocked his head and arched an eyebrow. “What is this?”

“An artful arrangement of myself.” Alim waved a hand vaguely over himself. “A seduction attempt.”

“This seems like an awful lot of effort to seduce _me_.” Zev sat on the edge of the bed.

“You’re fun to seduce.” Alim spat the flower out, and shoved it off the bed. “And I want to try again.”

“You know you have infinite tries, and I have infinite patience.”

“ _I don’t_. And I think I’ve worked out the problem, and solution. …a normal solution.”

“And your solution is?”

“This.” He threw away the pillow. Anticipation won out over anxiety; his cock was already half-hard and blood-heavy.

“Being naked? I won’t deny that is a good first step--”

Alim raised a serious eyebrow that cut Zevran short, and sat up. “Look, what we are about to do, if you are willing, is inherently silly and embarrassing, and will necessitate not being in complete control of the situation. And instead of trying to make it not somewhat scary and embarrassing, I’m just going to deal with that. …also I was worried about setting small fires, but if accidental fires were going to happen, they would have happened by now.”

Zevran looked up, thinking. “I haven’t ever noticed fires when I’ve been with mages—“

“But what if I’m special?” He said, in mock-horror, hand splayed on his chest. “So,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows in a truly stupid fashion “do you want to do ‘the sex’?”

Zevran barked out a laugh. “Only if you drop the article.”

He sighed dramatically, and fell back on the bed. “If you insist.” Alim fell back on the bed.

Zevran straddled his hips, leaned forward, and kissed him. Softly, on the lips, moving them around with no attempts to get in his mouth.

Alim lifted and hand, and stroked Zevran’s hair. …he was never getting used to being on the road again was he? Not that Zevran’s hair wasn’t strokeable on the road, but this was a whole new level of that he was rapidly growing to appreciate and expect. It was soft and fluffy and smooth under his hands, and didn’t leave any greasy residue.

Zevran kissed along the corners of his mouth. Alim tried to follow, but Zevran moved his kissing along too fast for him to keep up, kissing his cheek, along his jaw, down his neck.

“Okay, kissing: very nice, but I’m pretty sure that was not our plan?”

“Foreplay is very important. And I want to make sure I have very thoroughly played the fore.”

“If I’m not allowed to call it ‘the sex,’ I’m going to say that ‘foreplay’ has to stay one word.”                

“Picky, picky.” Zev arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure I can not convince you?”

He smiled. “You may _try_.”

Zevran smirked back and moved down to his collar bone, feather light, with just enough pressure to not be ticklish and to leave ghost kisses.

Alim picked at laces of Zevran’s shirt ineffectually. (At least it wasn’t buckles this time.)

Zev got the hint, and sat up for long enough to pull his shirt off—and okay the sitting up felt – _nice_. Brushed up against him in a good way. (In a way that let him feel that Zevran’s cock was equally hard.)

The view was also _nice_. It would be hard for Zevran to look bad, but he looked especially good with the twilight coming through the windows making his skin shine, Alim could actually see his tattoos properly in this light—

He should probably express this appreciation. Yes, that was a good idea. He stroked along Zevran’s shoulder, his breast muscle, gently squeezing. (The groping was definitely purely for Zev’s benefit. Yes. He was _definitely_ not getting anything out this himself. Nuh uh.) 

Zev hummed his appreciation, as he moved down Alim’s chest, and sucked on a nipple.

It felt like a needle going through his chest, as his nipple hardened. A pleasurablyeneedle. That should not have felt that nice. It made his stomach clench and it shouldn’t have done that. “That—that shouldn’t have worked. That should not be how bodies work.”

“Do you disapprove?”

“No! Just—unexpected, is all.”

Zevran sucked the other one, and Alim hissed. He moved on, leaving Alim’s nipples cold with spit, and kissed along his rib muscles. “Would you like to try something it is phenomenally hard to be bad at?”

“Well, you’re the expert. Sure.”

Zevran shuffled off his hips, shuffled downwards till he was nearly on all fours. He put his hand on Alim’s cock, and stroked, once, twice, just enough to get it hard enough to stand up on its own. And then—

Leaving one hand on his cock, he licked it, from root to head, and _grinned._ It was half a check in, but the rest of it was smugness; cat-got-the-cream, he-got-his-mouth-on-a-Warden’s-dick _smugness_.

Alim held his breath, and had to think hard about letting it go. “Well, don’t feel the need to stop on my account.”

The grin flashed wider, and he put his mouth, his whole mouth over the head of his cock and--

“Maker, _fuck_ —“ It was good, in a way that was hard to describe, hot and wet and pinpointed right on the most sensitive part of him. “—in a good way, I like it, don’t stop if you don’t want to stop—“

Zev bobbed his head up and down, moving his hand up and down with it, and the movement combined with intensity was just a lot to deal with, okay. “—and I’m babbling now.”

His free hand gave him an encouraging squeeze, asking him to keep talking. His hair tickled his thighs as he moved.

“Provided you don’t expect coherence, fuck--” Zevran ran his tongue along a vein “--because you are making that very hard right now, no pun intended.”

Alim’s hands scrabbled on the sheets, and he needed to find something to do with them or something very bad was going to happen either to his hands or the linen. He reached up to Zev’s head, and stroked his hair, didn’t hold him down (because a) that felt mean, and b) he did not need more intensity thank you very much, he would like to hold on for at least a little bit), but held his hair out of his face.

Another encouraging thigh squeeze. Zev was also—wiggly, in his hips, and his chest was blocking Alim’s view but he could make an educated guess as to _why_ and that was also very encouraging.

 “Know what? I’m going to make a note of that. You have doomed yourself to a lifetime of my rambles during sex. Doomed, I tell you, _doomed_.”

Zevran did something that was halfway an attempt to stifle a laugh and halfway an attempt to see how far he could reach with his tongue. And then an attempt to see how far he could get Alim in his mouth.

Which was pretty far.

He went past his mouth—and that was definitely into his _throat_ , it was tighter, and Alim could feel the root of his tongue halfway down his cock.

“You—you can actually _do_ that?”

Zev swallowed around him, still working with his tongue, before moving back up.

“Maker, that’s good. Definitely more than a party trick.”

Zevran set a rhythm, not quite slow, but taking his time going up and down Alim’s cock, making sure every part got i’s fair share of attention, carefully cataloguing each reaction, both verbal and physical.

As much as Alim would have liked to give him time for a more detailed study—the study itself had its affects. Not just physical (but of course physical, there was nothing wrong with the purely physical, the heat around him, heat and tension building and boiling inside him), but emotional. Zev was enjoying himself, at least on some level, and that was a vindication of all the work it had taken to get here—but the effects on himself were also that.

He could still see why he had been scared—this was intense and intimate and a lot to deal with at once- and so worth it. So worth it to work out how be able to deal with that, to convince himself that he could.

(Made the Lover’s Bane worth it, if it turned out to be some necessary step.)

And he wanted to make it last.

But, well. Bodies. The physical reactions thereof. “I’m—I’m close—“

He expected Zevran to, well, move, or something along those lines.

He didn’t.

Technically he did move, but not _away_. He kept going, bobbing up and down with long strokes of his tongue, until Alim couldn’t keep track of what he was doing with his mouth anymore, as the tension inside him burst and released and he spilled in Zevran’s mouth.

Zevran pulled off, and wiped the spit off his chin with the back of his hand. He looked --‘smug’ wasn’t quite the word, this expression looked too attractive to be smug— _confident_. (Alim felt he could be excused from being bad at adjectives for the next few minutes.) “Did you enjoy that?”

And that shouldn’t have been a question, and even though ‘yes’ was technically an answer, it didn’t feel adequate. Nor did he have the power of speech to give an actually adequate answer. So, he used his mouth in another way. He sat up, and Zevran moved towards him equally,  and he kissed him. Slowly, opening his lips with his lips, gently stroking his tongue across his gums—

— _fuck , that’s salty._

Alim pulled back, and tried not to scrunch up his face. (Failed at not scrunching up his face.) “At least it doesn’t taste of licorice?”

Zev smiled incredulously. “You mean you haven’t tasted yourself before?”

“If a Templar caught me, how was I going to _explain_ that?”

“You generally don’t!”

“They would have thought I was attempting blood magic in an absurdly roundabout fashion, and then where would I be?”

“— _could_ you do magic with--?”

“Probably not? Someone has to have tried it, and someone has to have been mad enough to write it down, and I haven’t seen it.”

Zevran laid down on the bed next to Alim, propped up on one elbow.

“Would you like me to—“ and Maker, why was phrasing so awkward (why was _he_ so awkward)? “—do you?”

“Not that I didn’t get anything out of that—“ Zev shifted his hips, rearranged his legs “—I’d rather not throw you into a situation you are uncomfortable in.”

“I’ve got hands, you’ve got a dick, I’m pretty sure I can combine those things.” The afterglow gave his words confidence that he lacked, and thank goodness for that. It was true. He had hands. Zev had a dick. These things, in theory, could be combined in a way that was pleasurable. And he had touched dicks before, this wasn’t entirely new territory—But this was an entirely new dick. Attached to a person that wasn’t him. There wouldn’t be the immediate tactile feedback loop, or the accrued practice, however limited, of what he liked.

This was a thing you could be _bad at_.

But it wouldn’t be exactly fair if he stuck with the only the things it was hard to be bad at. And even if the prospect of absolutely fucking up was terrifying, he could face it. He’d done quite a few terrifying things this evening, what was one more?

“Well, if you would like to try—“ Zev said, doing his best to sound ‘noble’ and ‘educational’ despite his obvious vested interest.

Somehow they had forgotten the pants removal step for him. Shocking oversight, really. Alim undid his belt (a much easier task when now that he could actually see what he was doing), and Zev lifted his hips for Alim to pull down his pants. Revealing that for whatever reason, he hadn’t elected to wear smalls today.

“Did you _plan_ this?” he said, gesturing vaguely at the absence of smalls.

Zev grinned. “Now, please, you know I have to keep some trade secrets.”

Alim rolled his eyes, and turned to the task at hand, as it were.

Zevran’s cock was a reasonable length (Alim assumed, it seemed a reasonable length to him) and thick, with a thick foreskin. It was also hard and leaking pre cum. That seemed like an important detail.

Alim ran his thumb over the slit, slicking his hand with the precum, and—wrapped his hand around Zev’s cock. It sat warm and heavy in his hand. He stroked up and down once, with a light pressure (because ‘too light’ was a better problem to have than ‘way too fucking hard’).

He looked up at Zev.  “This good?”

“A little firmer—“ A pant, a vacant look, as Alim complied “—yes, good, and a little slower. Just keep on like that.” Whether it was as something to do, or because he’d noticed Alim watching him, he leaned forward and kissed Alim. Grabbed him around the back of the head, finger combing his hair before getting too distracted.

Alim leaned into the kiss, kissed along Zev’s jaw while doing his best to ‘keep going like that.’

Zev leaned to side to lick and kiss and just generally tease Alim’s ear.

They spent a minute or so like that, trading kisses and Alim stroking Zev, before Zevran put his hand over his. He moved Alim’s hand for him, setting a slightly faster rhythm.

Alim followed, as Zev started sucking on the corner of his jaw. “I had no idea my jaw was my best feature.”

“It’s merely your most accessible.” Zev pulled back for a second. “I feel like I should warn you—“

Alim savoured the first time he made someone else come. Even if he couldn’t savour the look on Zev’s face, because he decided the best response would be to bury his face in his shoulder. Alim stroked once, twice, before Zev took his hand away. Alim took that as his cue to peel his own hand away.

He scooped up as much cum as he could, and groped around with his free hand for a piece of fabric he didn’t love. He grabbed a handkerchief. That’d do.

Zevran flopped dramatically on his side as Alim cleaned up.

“That good?”

“It was excellent.” He stretched out and closed his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Uh, thank you too.” Lying down seemed like a good idea. The bed was soft, and there was a warm and potentially cuddly Zevran nearby, and he was somewhere between wired and exhausted. He lay down, and Zevran blindly flopped an arm over him.

He’d done it. Well, they’d done it. They’d successfully had sex with no fleeing or anything. “Success!” he whispered to himself.

Zevran stifled a laugh next to him.


End file.
